“Thank God that Iraqi forces liberated us from ISIS cowards. We hope that with the liberators everything good will return to [own] town,” local resident Muhammad Aysh told RT.

This is not the first Iraqi town which suffered from Islamic State’s destruction that was visited by an RT crew. In February, RT travelled to the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, which were only partially liberated by Iraqi forces.

Once prosperous places the cities looked like ghost towns – cars hit by artillery shells and dilapidated buildings where people once lived and prayed looked like scenes from a post-apocalyptic movie.Islamic State group emerged in Iraq back in 2013 as an Al-Qaeda affiliate. The organization made headlines in 2014 when it attacked Kurdish-held territory in the northern part of Iraq and seized territories in Iraq’s Sunni heartland, including the cities of Mosul and Tikrit. By August of 2014, IS controlled nearly a third of Iraq. However, Iraqi forces have said that they are making gains recently with the help of the US-led coalition’s air support.